Friday, April 6, 2012

Searching the Census

I am beyond excited about the release of the 1940 federal census. The only problem that I have is that it is not indexed so I need to know the enumeration district for each person I am searching.
I decided to start my search of the 1940 census with two names who I believe were in the same location ten years earlier. I have the enumeration districts from the 1930 census and was able to get the 'ED' for the 1940 census by visiting Steve Morse's sitehttp://stevemorse.org/census/unified.html I was able to convert the 'ED' from 1930 to 1940 to make my search a little easier.
According to the 1930 census, my maternal grandmother, Eleanor was a 12 year old girl living with her maternal grandmother, Teresa and two uncles in Brooklyn, NY. I don't know where MaMa's parents were in 1930 but I hope to find them and her brothers in the 1940 census. Teresa Duper and her youngest son died tragically at home on New Year's Eve in 1955. The newspaper article stated that she had lived in that apartment for 40 years which means that she was at this address in 1930 and still there ten years later.
MaMa's paternal grandparents, Daniel and Flora Davis lived in Poughkeepsie, NY in 1930. Daniel died in 1937 after being hit by a train. Flora died in 1937four years later, in 1941, so she should be in the 1940 census. They owned their home on South Cherry Street and had lived there for quite a few years. I'm hoping that Flora stayed there even after her husband's death.
Last night I tried to look up my ancestors with the enumeration district numbers from 1930 but couldn't find anyone. After visiting Steve Morse's site, I converted the enumeration district numbers from 1930 to 1940. By the time I found the new enumeration districts it was too late to start scrolling through page after page for each district. I needed to get to sleep so I wouldn't be too tired after work the next day to continue searching the census.